Five U.S. LNG export projects are under construction, including in Freeport and Corpus Christi, but many are awaiting both regulatory approval and corporate decisions on whether to invest billions of dollars during a market downturn.

Perhaps the most brazen project is The Woodlands-based NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG project in Texas. NextDecade proposes building what could be the nation’s largest LNG export facility, with the first of three phases scheduled to come online in 2020. The $6 billion project would be constructed on 1,000 acres at the Port of Brownsville near the Mexican border.

“We want to be the leader of the second wave of export projects out of the U.S.,” said NextDecade CEO Kathleen Eisbrenner, a former executive at Royal Dutch Shell before founding the company in 2010.

Many industry analysts and executives expect LNG demand to pick up after 2020 as countries reduce their reliance on coal, in part from international accords on climate change. The expansion of the Panama Canal, which will accommodate LNG tankers, will make Asian markets more accessible to Texas and other Gulf Coast exporters.

“It’s like a drug,” Eisbrenner said. “Once a country gets a taste of LNG they never want to go back.”